Percy Jackson and the Legacy
by nycnaya
Summary: Percy Jackson. Son of Aphrodite. Legacy of Hephaestus. A/N : ALL CREDITS TO RICK RIORDAN.
1. Chapter 1

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right

now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal

life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful,

nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you

for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop

reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time

before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a

private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going

bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mentalcase

kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to

look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know—it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a

scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think

he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this

awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't

put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to

the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for

the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school,

when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong

lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you

get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac

girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-andketchup

sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've

been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a

wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE

for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny,

like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was

enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair,

and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The

headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing,

or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age.

He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old.

She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.

She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.

She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um,

Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life.

Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman

armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god

they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life.

No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas.

We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice.

Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course,

Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a

genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even ifthis was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again.

I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp.

He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank.

I don't remember saying anything to her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the

fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes

between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr.

Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the

end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently, that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher,

especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been

selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's copper sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N - Hey, thxs for all the feedback. To the gust who said "P.S. I'm slightly confused how Percy managed to push Nancy in the fountain in this chapter as he's not a son of Poseidon and doesn't have water powers? It'd be great if you could clear that up..." , in the text i said " I don't remember **saying** anything to her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain..." so, he charmspoke her. (PS , THE FIRST COUPLE CHAPTERS WILL BE LIKE THE BOOK)

Percy P.O.V

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.

Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or

some-thing.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still

standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, read-ing his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twentyfour/seven hallucina-tion was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my dad a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my dad in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tourna-ment days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I stud-ied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing oneeighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

-small timeskip-

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for

sure, and they know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- "

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her... ."

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller

than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muf-fled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's noth-ing to be-"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.

"Percy-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a fam-ily of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing ner-vously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased.

But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there w-"

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect

you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get

beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine com-partment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from pass-ing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no cus-tomers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face.

His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.


	3. Chapter 3

**Percy P.O.V**

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the enginecompartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't.

It was something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already pick-ing the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

-IMESKIP-

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

A word about my dad, before you meet him.

His name is Sully Jackson and hes the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. His own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and he was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a Superintendent, so he spent high school working to save enough money for trade school. Then his uncle got cancer, and he had to quit school his senior year to take care of him. After he died, he was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break he ever got was meeting my mom.

I don't have any memories of her, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of her smile. My dad doesn't like to talk about her because it makes her sad. He has no pictures. See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, she was on her way to France for a buisness opertunity, and she never came back. The plane crashed over the Atlantic.

Lost at sea, my dad told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

He worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. He never com-plained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my dad would be home from work. And lo and behold, he was.

"Oh, Percy." He hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

His red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff he sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. He'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way he always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, he ran his hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. He didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. He didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was his little boy doing all right?

For his sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told him I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started chok-ing up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.

Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my dad asked. His eyes tugged at my con-science, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Dad."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell him about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

He knew I was holding back, but he didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," he said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?"

He smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My dad and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because there wasn't enough money.

"Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgot-ten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in his eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my dad too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then his smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with

faded cur-tains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the

cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to him. It was the place where he'd met my mom.

As we got closer to Montauk, he seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.

We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my dad had brought from work.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Dad told me stories about when he was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. He told me about the things he wanted to build one day, when he had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to

Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always

did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"She was kind, Percy," he said. "Tall, beautiful, and gentle. You have her light brown hair, you know, and her blue eyes." See, i should explain my eyes. They ranged from a light blue and changed to green or purple depending on my mood. I know, weird right? I asked my dad about it and he told me I got it from mom.

Dad fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish she could see you, Percy. She would be so proud."

I wondered how he could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when she left?"

He watched the flames. "You were about 6 months when she left."

I felt angry at my mom. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented her for going on that trip to France.

-TIMESKIP-

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful ani-mals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were tryingto kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle withits huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled,and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion.

I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed," No!"

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my dad woke. He sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have for-gotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My dad sprang out of bed in his boxers and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," he said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell him?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. Iwas too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. BecauseGrover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...

My dad looked at me sternly and talked in a tone he'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my dad stared at me, his face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

He grabbed his bag, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my dad could see anything, but he kept his foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I won-dered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remem-bered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my dad ... know each other?"

Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said.

"I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."

"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why-"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy," my dad said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mr. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My dad made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and "PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES" signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My father's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your mother wanted to send you."

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leath-ery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human.

She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my dad shouted.

"I'm okay... ."

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch.

Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, "No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!"

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy," my father said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure

lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," my dad said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My dad threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. It was stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges weresizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my father told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my dad said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Dad, you're coming too."

His face was pale, his eyes sad.

No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swing-ing at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...

"He doesn't want us," my dad told me. "He wants you.

"But..."

"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, dad."

"I told you-"

"Dad! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for his answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my dad hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waisthigh grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was soscary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long asmy arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-andwhite horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my father said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't say his name," he warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the win-dows-or not looking exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Dad, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," he said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassiscreaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded..

"Percy," my dad said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My father must've been exhausted, but he shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.

So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bel-lowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my dad , who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my dad, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Percy!" he told me. "Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. He tried to sidestep, as he'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as he tried to get away. He lifted her as he struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Dad!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if he were a holographic projection. Ablinding flash, and he was simply ... gone.

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammedinto the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was

getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my dad, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the sameway Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling withgrief I'd just seen my dad vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing myhelp, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house.

I was crying, calling for my father, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

A/N: Thanks for all the support so far. If this gets 15 more reviews ill update Friday. Ik that sounds like alot, but to be fair ive been updating almost everyday lol. ALSO, IF U SEE ANY MISPLACED "MOM, HER/HIS, HIM/HER, I HAD TO CHANGE SALLY TO SULLY, SO THERES GONNA BE SOME MESSED UP PRONOUNS. DONT FLAME ME.)


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